


blooming in your palms

by gayprophets



Series: Author's Favorites [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Affection, Crying, Cuddling, Dani's fat and you can pry that from my cold dead hands, Day At The Beach, Declarations Of Love, EXPLICITLY trans dani, Established Relationship, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gay yearning, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Light Angst, Love, Love Confessions, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Requited Love, Romantic Fluff, Trans Dani, Trans Female Character, True Love, ghost jokes, i wrote this as a light funny thing and it got out of hand and punched me with emotions, the Beach Episode we all wanted, this bitch is about LOVE gang!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 08:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19989214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: The lodge goes and has a beach day. All the usual stuff happens - sunscreen, bugspray, beach reading, realizing you're in love with your girlfriend and not knowing how to handle that, trying to drown your friends, grilling tasty ass cheese burgers. Nothing out of the ordinary here.-Aubrey does her best to keep her focus on the road, but her gaze slides sideways sometimes, over to Dani. She glows golden as the sun comes up, similar but not the same as when she takes off her ring. Aubrey admires her in glances - the way her hair falls over her cheeks, the soft part of her lips as she breathes, the curve of her nose and jawline, the way her thighs press together and their fine coating of black hair. She’s soft, no hard edges to be found, beautiful, eye catching in her relaxation. It makes Aubrey smile, and without even thinking about it she slips her phone out of the cupholder and snaps a photo to make her background when they stop.“Hey Moira?” Aubrey asks, putting her phone back down. “What’s it like being dead?”“What’s it like being alive?” Moira replies, sarcastic.





	blooming in your palms

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys this was going to be a new suite life chapter but it suddenly was 16k and packed with emotions. You don't have to read suite life or saving candlenights or any of the series to understand this but there are references to parts of it! it's completely understandable without any prior knowledge of the series. 
> 
> also warning there's talk of roadkill in this if youre sensitive to that. it's not a big thing Moira is just morbid
> 
> this is mostly edited but if you spot any typos please lmk!

West Virginia gets _hot_ in the summer. Aubrey’s experienced heat before, of course, but nothing like this - swampy, muggy, like the air itself is wrapping around her and slowly choking her to death. It’s _suffocating._ Her skin responds by ramping up its oil production and giving her a smattering of pimples across her cheeks and forehead, creeping along her jawline.

Aubrey wakes up wanting to go to the beach. It’s not something she’s thought about in a long time - she doesn’t even own a swimsuit anymore, and her parents had a pool, so going to places like the beach (where there are _strangers_ and _fish_ and there’s _no immediate access to a 100% sanitary and private bathroom)_ was never a huge deal. Nonetheless, she wakes up and can hear the dulcet tones of Jimmy Buffet blaring in her head. It’s _already_ sticky out, and the sun’s barely cresting the horizon. The heatwave projected for the next week must be slamming into them early.

It’s funny how she doesn’t need an alarm clock, she thinks as she slips out of bed and pads down to the kitchen, where Barclay is already clanging around. Even though the AC is running constantly in almost every room, everybody has taken to wearing as little clothing as possible, particularly Barclay, because the kitchen is one of the few rooms that only has a window fan. He’s in a green tank top and basketball shorts that she’s sure she’s seen both Jake and Mama wearing, his hair up in a french braid that he clearly put in the night before. It’s barely past six in the morning. As she watches, Barclay lifts the lid off the butter dish. Melted butter trickles over the sides and onto the counter, and sits in a sad yellow puddle in the middle of the white ceramic. He sighs.

When she’d been going to high school, she’d needed twenty alarms and her mom and/or dad banging on her door just to be up and mobile by seven, and even _then_ she wasn’t cognizant enough to form sentences until at _least_ ten. On the weekends she’d sleep until noon or later, and in the summer she tended to pull multiple all-nighters in a row, then sleep for the next two days straight. Now she’s pretty sure she gets a solid eight and a half hours of sleep per night, out by 9:30 and up by six, weekday or not.

“Should I just declare today a fend for yourself smoothie day?” Barclay asks, turning his head to look at her, leaning her hip against on the counter next to him. “I’ll make some for you and prep the fruit of course, but if I have to turn on the stove I might throw up.”

“Sure!” she says easily, turning to the fridge and beginning to unload the milk and the various cartons of fruits, takes out two apples and sets them on the counter - one granny smith for Dani, a honeycrisp for herself. “You know, I think mornings are actually really great, and school just sucks.” She pulls open the freezer, smiles down at the bags of strawberries and blackberries. She and Dani had gone and trekked a lot of the property to pick them, carrying wicker baskets and holding hands on the walk to other bushes. They’d ended up with too many to eat all at once, so they’d frozen them for later.

“Uh-huh,” Barclay says, plugging in the blender. “I assume you had a whole mental conversation to get to that point, mind letting me in on it?”

She tells him.

“The horrors of America will never cease to amaze me,” Barclay says when she’s done, making a face.

“Also,” she says, thinking about Dani’s hands deftly reaching between blackberry thorns to expertly pluck one off its stem, her fingertips stained royal purple. “Dani is just, _so_ pretty.”

“I’m going to start making a chart to keep track of how many times you tell me that,” Barclay says, chuckling, quickly slicing up a mango. “I’m fairly certain it’s every morning.”

“I can’t help it!” Aubrey yelps. “I’m just reporting what I see!”

Barclay laughs, then turns on the blender for a few moments, the loud whirring taking over their conversation. He starts pouring them into glasses for the first round of breakfast goers.

The kitchen door bangs open, and they both jump.

Jake stands in the doorway, looking extremely sweaty and disheveled. He’s wearing boxers (printed with blue and pink sharks), his goggles, and nothing else.

 _“Smoothie,”_ he says.

Aubrey dutifully ferries one over to him. Jake has taken to lounging nearly naked in whatever room he’s deemed to be the coolest that day, spread out until he is making as little contact with his own body as possible. He chugs ice water like a fiend and screams _no too close don’t touch me_ at the top of his lungs if anyone gets within five feet of him. Two days ago Mama dragged him out of the cold shower he’d been sitting in all afternoon by the scruff of his neck.

“Other people need water too,” she told him sternly, swaddling him in a towel. Jake had honked like a goose and rolled about on the floor as though he’d been grievously injured, even with blue lips and chattering teeth.

Jake slams the glass back in two seconds flat, setting it back down on the counter aggressively. “I’m dying,” he tells them, pointing at Barclay.

“You have made it through every summer before now and you will make it through this one too,” Barclay tells him.

“Did I?” Jake asks incredulously.

“Yes!” Barclay says. “In fact, you used to do it with _much less complaining!_ You used to go out _mountain biking_ and _skateboarding,_ all in the summer, wearing _real clothes_ the _entire time!”_

“No I didn’t,” Jake says. “You must have heat stroke hallucinated that.”

“I still have the cast from when you broke your arm a few summers ago,” Barclay says.

“I don’t remember that. I must have heat stroke blacked it out.”

“I don’t think you know how heat stroke works,” Aubrey tells him.

He blows a raspberry at her, then goes and sticks his head in the fridge, resting his goggles against one of the shelves. “I think I’m dying. I want to go drown in an ice bath.”

“You’re fine,” Barclay says. “But if you wanted to swim, _not_ drown, Aubrey was just saying that she wanted to go to the beach.”

Jake whips his head around so fast she can hear his neck pop. “Can we? Right now? Like, _right_ now?”

“No, but later this week, maybe,” Barclay says. “I’d have to ask Mama. Come help me cut up mangos. You too, Aubrey.”

“I can’t,” Aubrey says mournfully, tucking the apples under her arm and picking up two of the full glasses. “Sweet Barclay, I cannot chop mangos - tender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl.”

“I think it’s slender,” Jake says.

“You know what? I think you have heat stroke and don’t know what you’re saying,” Aubrey says, walking backwards out of the kitchen. “Sayonara bitches, I’m gonna go kiss Dani now.”

“Aubrey -,” Barclay starts, laughing, and she shuts the door behind her with her hip, cutting him off. She takes the stairs two at a time, careful not to spill anything. Dani usually gets up a few minutes after her, so Aubrey won’t be committing too great a sin if she wakes her up. She taps on the door with one knuckle, getting a grumbled _come in_ in response.

“Good morning,” Aubrey says, sing-song, pushing the door open. “Brought you breakfast!”

It’s blessedly chilly inside, the AC a constant quiet thrum in the background. Dani’s wrapped up in her quilt like a burrito, just the top of her head poking out, gleaming gold against her white bedsheets. The sun streams in through her open curtains, a spotlight on the center of the bed. Dani wiggles her way upright and partially out of her blanket cocoon, eyes squinting against the light, sleep creased and smiling. Aubrey smiles back, feeling warmth bloom in her ribcage.

“Breakfast in bed?” Dani asks as Aubrey sits down next to her, slipping her legs underneath the covers alongside Dani’s. It’s toasty under the blankets, but pleasantly so, unlike outside. Aubrey presses as close to her as she can. “What’d I do to deserve this?”

“I just like you a lot,” Aubrey says, passing her a glass and an apple. “And you make me smile every day.” There’s pillow lines on Dani’s face and across her forearms. “Also, Barclay didn’t feel like cooking. It’s like a _swamp_ out there.”

Dani kisses her on the cheek, lingering there for a moment, her nose brushing Aubrey’s cheekbone and hair tickling her face. “Thank you, sweetness,” she says. “I like you too.”

“That’s _gay,”_ Aubrey says. Her heart beats oddly faster in her chest, and she presses a hand to her sternum to still it.

 _“We’re_ gay,” Dani replies, pulling back and sipping her smoothie. 

“West Virginia is landlocked, right? No beaches?” Aubrey asks, drinking some of her own smoothie.

Dani nods. “Mm, yeah. No oceans here. We have lakes though,” she says, and then bites into her apple. “Why?” she asks with her mouth full. 

“I’m like, _desperate_ to go to the beach,” Aubrey says, and then a different song starts playing in her head. “Desperate. I want _my toes_ -,”

“Don’t -,” Dani starts, visibly recognizing it.

“- _In the water, ass in the sand,”_ Aubrey warbles, leaning heavily into Dani’s side, _“Not a worry in the world_ -,”

“I hate that song,” Dani says, laughing.

_“A cold beer in my hand -,”_

“You hate beer, shush!”

“Maybe I judged it too harshly!” Aubrey says, pressing a kiss to the curve of Dani’s jaw. “Jake _loves_ the stuff, maybe I should give it another try -,”

“Jake’s a heathen with no taste buds,” Dani proclaims, pressing the pad of her finger to the tip of Aubrey’s nose. “He likes _Bud Lite,”_ she spits.

“We can’t all be Rosé drinkers, Dani. And I’m a heathen too, just ask the church,” Aubrey says. “I’m the goth heathen of their nightmares, living in sin,” she says, gesturing at the room around them - Aubrey’s bra in the corner, two of her shirts slung over the back of Dani’s chair, food and water dishes for Dr. Bonkers in the corner. “With the most beautiful vampire woman in the world. I’m more goth than Mary Shelley. She _wishes_ she were on my level.”

“Ugh,” Dani says, rolling her eyes, smiling, her cheeks going pink. “You’re gross.”

“What can I say? You bring it out in me.” Aubrey says, and they both eat in comfortable quiet for a while. Aubrey finishes first, dropping her apple core into her glass, exchanging it on the bedside table for a pale green paddle brush, with multiple hair elastics and scrunchies around the handle. She eases her way behind Dani so that her back rests against the wall, gently carding her blonde hair back and away from her face with her fingers. She sets the brush down on the bed and slowly picks apart a piece that’s wrapped itself into a tangle around the straps of her camisole.

“Are the lake beaches any good?” Aubrey asks, picking up the brush again and starting at the ends of her hair. “I’ve never been to one.” 

Dani hums, then drains the last of her smoothie, setting it on the bedside table as well. “I wouldn’t know any different,” Dani says. “I’ve never seen the ocean. It’s pretty nice though. Mama has a friend who owns a lakeside house with a dock that she lets us use sometimes. It’s real private, can’t be seen from the road or other houses or anything, so we can take our disguises off.” She twists the little silver band on her finger. “It’s only a three hour drive.”

Aubrey used to balk at car rides longer than 15 minutes, but after leaving home and traveling cross country for a while, they’re pretty much an old hat. But -

 _“Only_ three hours?” Aubrey asks, incredulous. She’s got one section free of tangles, so she twirls it around her fingers once and moves onto the next. 

Dani laughs, pushing some of her blankets out of the way and shifting to sit cross legged. “Aubrey, it takes fifty minutes just to go to Home Depot, and that’s with _Mama_ at the wheel. The nearest _Walmart_ -,” she says the store name with the same inflection one would give the word _pedophile,_ which is definitely something she picked up from Mama, “- Is over an _hour_ away. Three hours to a beach is nothing.”

Aubrey smiles. Half of Dani’s hair is free of tangles, parted straight down the middle and pushed over her shoulders. Aubrey leans forward and kisses the exposed skin of the back of her neck, the fine unbleached baby hairs dusted along her hairline tickling her nose. “Please admit that three hours is a long time, babe, because it is.”

“Not if you’re used to it!” Dani says, and then shivers when Aubrey’s blunt fingernails graze over her scalp as she tries to work out a knot. “And not if you have good company and great tunes for the ride.” She turns her head and shoots a glance over at her CD Walkman on her desk, which Aubrey knows full well contains the CD Aubrey had burned for her as a Candlenights present - _Aubrey’s Very Cool Dani Mixtape._

Aubrey chuckles, running the brush through her hair a few more times, just because. “Am I the good company?” she asks.

“No, I was talking about Jake,” Dani says, laughing. “Yes, you’re the company, dummy.”

“Just checking,” Aubrey says with a smile, wrapping her arms around Dani’s waist for a second, revelling in the softness of her stomach and skin, the slippery feel of her silk sleep shorts. “Want braids? A bun? Ponytail? Faux-hawk?”

Dani snorts. “Uh, braids, if you don’t mind. I have to weed the vegetable garden. Did somebody say something about going to the lake house?”

Aubrey pulls back, picking up the brush again and snapping two hair ties onto her wrist, then starts smoothing her hair into place for two french braids. “I guess?” she says. “We might go next week or something. I left to come up here before I even found out it was a lake house.” Aubrey frowns. “I need to buy a swimsuit.”

“What’s wrong with what you have?” Dani asks.

“It’s soccer shorts and a t-shirt,” Aubrey says, nearing the end of the first braid. 

“And?” Dani asks.

“It’s not really beach attire,” Aubrey says.

“You look cute in it,” Dani argues as Aubrey pulls an elastic off her wrist with her teeth.

“Thanks,” Aubrey says, then, “You think everything I do is cute.”

“And?” Dani asks again. “I’m not wrong!”

Aubrey giggles. “Well, if I’m going to the beach I’m gonna _commit_ to the beach aesthetic! It’s a bikini only zone, baby!”

Dani snorts. “Should I get one too then?” she asks, gesturing at her swimsuit, hanging on a hook on her closet door.

Dani’s swim dress is green and yellow, printed with palm leaves, and always smells faintly of sulfur from the hot springs. It’s old, but comfortable. According to Dani, she can have a hard time finding swimsuits, and clothes in general - the bottoms of pretty much anything present a few problems because she hates tucking. Cute bathing suits with skirts come along rarely, as does anything that fits well, so she tends to cling hard and fast to what she finds that looks good, and makes her own clothes the rest of the time. 

Aubrey kisses the shell of her ear. “Only if you want,” she says, getting back to the braid. “You might have some luck finding stuff online, but you’re beautiful in everything.”

Dani hums. “I’ll think about it.”

“All done,” Aubrey says, and Dani feels the top of her head. 

“Nice! Thank you darling,” she says, and then twists around, slinging her legs to either side of Aubrey’s hips. “Wanna make out?”

Aubrey laughs, and kisses her. They make out lazily for a few minutes, but eventually Dani does have to get up and pull on real clothes - jean shorts, a floral crop top with no bra, and a huge sun hat - so she can weed the garden before the sun climbs any further into the sky and it becomes too hot to be outdoors. She kisses Aubrey once more before she ducks out the door, whistling a song Aubrey doesn’t recognize. 

“Oh, hello Doctor!” Aubrey hears her exclaim. “Your mom’s in my room, if that’s who you’re looking for.” Aubrey has to bury her head in her hands for a moment, grinning. It’s nice how everyone in the Lodge chats idly to Dr. Bonkers, but when Dani does it, Aubrey turns into a blushing mess.

A few seconds later, and further away, Dani shouts - “Gross! Go put some fucking _clothes_ on, you _animal!_ You’re the worst!”

“I’m not built for the heat!” Jake wails back. “I belong in the Arctic! My junk is covered, I don’t see what the problem is - no wait stop you’re too close - _stop touching me oh my God Barclay help me I’m dying_ -!”

“No!” Barclay calls faintly as Aubrey hears a little scratching noise from the door. “It’s too hot! Sort it out amongst yourselves!”

“Next stop, suplex city!” Aubrey hears Dani say as she opens the door. Dr. Bonkers bolts in at warp speed, leaping up onto the bed and throwing himself on his side on top of Dani’s pillow. She snorts, shutting the door again to keep the air in.

“No!” Jake screams. “I’ll put a shirt on!”

There’s a few more moments of muttering, barely audible over the air conditioner. Aubrey roots through the dresser for some real clothes, deciding on a soft white shirt of Dani’s, which is far too big on her and incredibly comfortable, and a pair of her own black shorts. She sits down on the bed and starts stroking Dr. Bonkers’ ears. He clicks his teeth in contentment. The screen door leading out to the back garden slams.

A minute later, the door to Dani’s room creaks open. Jake walks in and stands there for a moment. He’s still in his boxers, but with the addition of a black crop top. It’s clearly handmade - it’s been raggedly cut to only about two inches under his nipples, and the sleeves have been ripped off. YES I AM A GIRL YES I HAVE FEET!, it reads in hot pink lettering, with a little Playstation controller below it.

“It’s too hot in here,” he says, and then about-faces and walks out again. Aubrey snickers, and scratches under Dr. Bonkers’ chin.

* * *

Duck had very kindly explained the concept of an _ethernet cable_ to her, so she’s able to order her new swimsuit online. It’s a conversation she still looks back on with a good deal of embarrassment, but was unfortunately necessary.

 _And you plug it into your computer, and you get the internet._ Duck had said as he resurrected her derelict laptop, previously banished to the bottom of her suitcase. _I can’t believe you didn’t know about this._

 _How was I supposed to know about some weird alternative internet?_ Aubrey had asked. _It wasn’t like I was setting up the internet constantly in my house, it was just_ there. _Why isn’t wifi enough for everyone?_

 _Aubrey,_ Duck had said, pinching the bridge of his nose, _this is the regular old internet. This is wifi, but with a cable. This was the wifi before there was wifi._

Her face still flushes a little whenever she looks at her laptop (which Duck had also roasted her for not cleaning, it was just frankly a rather overwhelming day that was no doubt revenge for the time she made him wear tripp pants), but the bikini arrives without incident, a few days before they’re set to go to the lake, so it was worth it. Jake brings it up to her.

“How do you _walk?”_ Aubrey asks upon opening her door.

Jake is dressed almost normally for once - jean shorts and a neon green t-shirt, only the shirt is, to be honest, almost a chiton. It goes down to his knees and is missing not only the sleeves, but nearly the entirety of the sides of the shirt, leaving most of his body exposed.

“Poorly,” Jake replies, shoving a small cardboard box in her face and walking (waddling) into her room. “What’d you get?”

“Bathing suit,” she says, using the pocketknife Mama gave her for Yule to slit the tape. 

“Sick,” Jake says, crouching down and picking up Dr. Bonkers, who scrambles his way up to Jake’s shoulders, leaving long scratches on his exposed arms and chest. “Ow.”

“You should wear real clothes,” Aubrey tells him. “Like, ones that _people_ wear, and not clowns, and maybe that won’t happen.” She hopes it’s the right size - she’s ordered from the site before, back in high school, and it’d fit perfectly, but her body’s changed a little since then. More muscle to her thighs, more weight in her stomach, and she hasn’t bought new clothes since arriving in Kepler, so she has no clue if her size has changed and she’s just stretched her current wardrobe to fit. If it doesn’t work, she’s just going to have to go in her soccer shorts and t-shirt combo and deal with it.

“I look cooler than you could ever _dream_ of looking,” Jake says. He has two different colored crocs on. Dr. Bonkers rubs his chin on Jake’s cheek in agreement.

“I’m sure,” Aubrey says. She pulls the flame patterned swimsuit out of the box, hums in appreciation, and holds the bottoms to her hips. They seem like they should fit. “What do you think?”

Jake picks Dr. Bonkers up off of his shoulder with a wince and sets him onto Aubrey’s bed. “Your crotch kind of looks like it’s on fire.”

Aubrey wrinkles her nose at him. “That’s on purpose,” she says.

“I’m sure,” Jake says, mocking. 

“Yeah,” Aubrey says, wickedly. “It’s _symbolism,_ it symbolizes my bomb-ass pus-,”

Jake screeches, cutting her off. He puts his hands over his ears. “No!” he yells. “Bad! I’m _banning_ those words from my presence!” 

“Yes!” she shouts after him, as he’s already running out of the room. “You can even ask Dani!”

Jake yells again, wordlessly, hiking his shirt up with one hand so he can sprint down the hall. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t need to know!”

Aubrey cackles and shuts her door. She tries on the bikini. It fits.

* * *

Someone bangs on Dani’s door. Aubrey squints through the deep blue pre-dawn light over at the clock on the wall to see that it is, in fact, 5:30 in the morning, and hucks her pillow at the door with all her strength. Dani grumbles, covering the ear not buried in her pillow with her hand.

They knock again. “Girls,” they say, and through her cloud of _I could have slept more_ rage, Aubrey recognises them as Barclay. “Open up.”

Aubrey staggers out of bed, nearly stubbing her toe on one of Dani’s plant pots and throwing on the first pair of shorts she grabs, wrangling her arms into the shirt she’d discarded last night. She throws open the door, squinting into the blinding yellow of the hallway light. “What.”

Barclay gently unloads two croissants - still warm - and two mugs of tea into her hands. “Morning, sunshine. We’re leaving at six,” he says, smiling. “If you don’t get up Mama and I are leaving without you.”

“It’s so _early,”_ Aubrey complains, even though she knew this was coming. 

“It’s 30 minutes before you usually wake up,” Barclay says, ruffling her hair. “You’ll be okay.”

“Will I?” Aubrey asks, then says, “Thank you.”

“I’m turning the lights on,” she whispers to Dani after she shuts the door.

“Noo,” Dani whispers back. 

“I’m _sorry,”_ Aubrey whispers, flicking the switch. Dani shrieks, throwing the covers over her head. Aubrey puts breakfast down on Dani’s desk and gently pulls her out of bed.

They eat and get ready quietly after that, slipping into their clothes - Dani into a tie dye shirt and shorts, Aubrey into shorts and a tank top - putting towels, sunglasses, their bathing suits, and other items into a tote bag. Aubrey packs her phone - they’re leaving the quiet zone, she’d like to text her friends and catch up - and Dani packs a book on tomatoes as well as her sketchbook. Dani did end up buying a new swimsuit, but has yet to let Aubrey see it.

“You’re a beach reader?” Aubrey asks. The knowledge is both surprising and yet not at all. She’s still whispering, for whatever reason, it just feels right to be quiet.

Dani nods, brushing past her to make the bed. “Yeah. Moira is too.”

Aubrey hands Dani the pillow she threw and slips on her cherry red flip flops, then goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

* * *

Barclay’s slamming the back of Mama’s truck shut when they both get outside. The sky’s turned a blush pink, still grey directly overhead, and the carpet of pine needles laying atop the gravel driveway muffles their footsteps. Aubrey takes a second to admire their surroundings - the deep green of the pines, their textured bark, the quiet murk of the forest extending beyond where the eye can see. The flowers in the gardens are unfolding their petals slowly, daylilies and trumpet vines in violent orange, hydrangeas and morning glories in rich blue. The Amnesty Lodge has a few lights on, but most of the windows are dark. The grass is wet with dew, and birds call quietly in the background. Aubrey inhales the fresh air and smiles.

“Mornin’,” Mama says. She’s leaning against the side of the truck and gently tosses Aubrey the keys to the car parked next to it. 

“Morning,” Dani says. 

“Fewer people than I thought there’d be,” Aubrey says. Moira’s sitting on the porch swing, sunhat and sunglasses already on, hair loose around her shoulders and semi-translucent. Jake is next to her, head tilted onto the backrest, ostensibly asleep. They’re the only ones in their swimsuits already - Jake in fluorescent orange swim trunks and a T shirt, Moira making a simple black one piece, flip flops, and a sheer white cover up look artful.

“Folks were pretty gung-ho ‘bout goin’ right up ‘till I told them we were leavin’ at the ass crack of dawn,” Mama says, chuckling. “And suddenly, we only needed two cars!”

Dani snorts. “Yeah, that’d do it.”

“Technically,” Mama continues, opening the clamshell doors and loading a backpack into the backseat. “We wouldn’t _need_ two cars, but _someone_ was against sittin’ in the bed or havin’ people sit on laps.”

“It’s _dangerous,_ Mama,” Barclay says. “It’s like you _want_ to get pulled over.”

“I was okay with sitting in the truck bed,” Moira says. “If we get into an accident, it's not like I can die _again.”_

“You wouldn’t be very comfortable, though.” Barclay says.

“Who was going to sit on whose lap?” Aubrey asks. Mama points at her, and then at Dani.

“It’s _fine,”_ Barclay says, rubbing his nose, “Taking two cars is _fine,_ you have more money than _God,_ Mama, we can afford the extra gas, _please_ just get in the cars.”

“Who’s with me?” Mama asks, clapping her hands together. Jake startles awake.

“Who’s driving?” Moira asks. Mama raises her hand. “Not me, then.”

“You wound me,” Mama says, smiling and looking completely unbothered. 

“Y’all are both six feet tall, I’m not sitting behind you,” Jake mutters, then stumbles his way over to Aubrey’s car and clambers into the backseat.

“That’s settled then,” Mama says. “Just follow me and you’ll be fine.”

The ride is much more pleasant and quieter than Aubrey had expected it to be - Dani puts in the _Very Cool Dani Mixtape_ and they hold hands most of the way, other than the beginning when she falls back asleep, or when Aubrey has to have both hands on the wheel to keep up with Mama. Jake’s sound asleep, and Moira isn’t very conversational by nature. 

They do talk though, a little. 

“Raccoon,” Moira says from behind her, pointing out the windshield. 

Sure enough, there’s a dead raccoon on the side of the road.

Aubrey makes a face. “Poor dude,” she says.

A few minutes later, Moira points and speaks up again. “Opossum.” and then - “Squirrel.”

“Do you have like, a _sense_ for when there’s dead stuff?” Aubrey asks.

“No,” Moira replies. “Why?”

“You just -,” Aubrey makes a frustrated noise. Dani sighs in her sleep, and she pitches her voice a little lower. “Is pointing out roadkill like ghost punch buggy?”

Moira laughs, light and musical. “No, no.” She pauses for a moment, and Aubrey can see her look out the window, clearly thinking. “I just find death on Earth to be - fascinating, I suppose, not to be macabre. It’s so very _permanent,_ and it happens much more often. It’s interesting to see how another world does things. Earth is cleaner, I think, but far less kind. And it keeps me sharp as to what the local fauna is. Don’t want to get caught out not knowing what a _mouse_ is, or something. It would be such a _ridiculous_ way to have someone figure out you’re from another planet. I’d die all over again from sheer mortification.”

They don’t talk again for nearly half an hour. Moira doesn’t point out any more roadkill, Aubrey notices.

Aubrey does her best to keep her focus on the road, but her gaze slides sideways sometimes, over to Dani. She glows golden as the sun comes up, similar but not the same as when she takes off her ring. Aubrey admires her in glances - the way her hair falls over her cheeks, the soft part of her lips as she breathes, the curve of her nose and jawline, the way her thighs press together and their fine coating of black hair. She’s soft, no hard edges to be found, beautiful, eye catching in her relaxation. It makes Aubrey smile, and without even thinking about it she slips her phone out of the cupholder and snaps a photo to make her background when they stop.

“Hey Moira?” Aubrey asks, putting her phone back down. “What’s it like being dead?”

“What’s it like being alive?” Moira replies, sarcastic.

“That’s not fair!” Aubrey says, “That’s not even a _comparison,_ Moira! You’ve been _alive_ before, it’s not like I’ve ever been _dead!”_

Moira laughs again. “Fair enough.” She digs through the bag at her feet and pulls something Aubrey can’t see out of it. “Ask a hundred ghosts and you’ll get a hundred different answers, if I’m being honest with you. It varies,” she says. “But for me, I think it’s exactly the same, only quieter.”

Dani wakes up a few minutes later, about an hour into the drive. They hold hands, and Dani hums along to the songs.

Once they get off the highway, the roads progressively get narrower until they turn onto a dirt road, and Jake awakens with a snort. They’re surrounded by trees on all sides, so dense the sunlight is having a hard time getting through it. The occasional branch scrapes along the windows.

“We’re here already?” Jake asks, rubbing his eyes.

“That’s what happens when you sleep the whole way,” Dani tells him. “We’re about fifteen minutes out,” she says to Aubrey.

The more Jake wakes up, the more excited he gets, until he appears to be vibrating in place.

“I bet if I were to _run_ I’d get there faster than this,” he says. His hand is already on the door handle, even though there hasn’t been another house or driveway in over a minute. “Can you like, hit the gas?”

Aubrey gestures to Mama’s truck in front of them. “If you wanna ride Mama’s ass, we can pull over and _you_ can start driving.” 

“If we go any faster we will crash,” Moira says. “Relax, Jake.”

“Have you no faith in my driving?” Aubrey asks. “I’m hurt.”

“I have no faith in this _road,”_ Moira replies, right as they plow into a pothole that Aubrey had been trying her best to avoid, jostling everyone but Moira. Jake yelps, Dani winces, and Moira, completely unruffled, very calmly grabs the roof handle.

The trees open up into an overgrown field, dotted with coneflowers and phlox, bugs swooping about the tall blades of grass. The road turns right and shifts downhill, then up slightly, and then there’s what must be the lakehouse - tan with green shutters and a bright red door situated up on a porch. A woman is standing outside the door, having paused in shutting it to look out at them. She’s slightly too far away for Aubrey to make out any details, but her hair is shot through with grey. Moira reaches into her bag with one hand, twisting her hair with the other, and sticks her hairpin through it neatly, immediately becoming opaque and 100% human again.

Mama pulls in next to a silver Honda that’s idling in the driveway, and Aubrey parks behind her truck as to not block the woman in.

Jake, predictably, leaps from the car before the wheels even quit moving. The woman comes down from the porch slowly, her shoulders drawn back and tight. Her smile is the most tense one Aubrey’s ever seen in her life.

“What’s her name?” Aubrey hisses to Moira and Dani. That information suddenly feels absolutely critical and not knowing it beforehand is sending her straight to hell. Dani shrugs, looking exactly as awkward as Aubrey feels.

“We’ve never met her,” Moira says quietly. “She’s always gone by the time we show up - I believe that’s why Mama had us leave so early this time.”

Aubrey exhales slowly and gets out of the car. Dani joins her, tangling their fingers together and lingering slightly behind, like she can use Aubrey as a meatshield against whatever uncomfortable situation is about to arise.

Mama’s already walking up the path to the porch.

“Angie!” Aubrey hears her say. “Long time no see! You look good, sweetheart!”

Angie, apparently, accepts the hug that Mama gives her with much less reluctance than Aubrey had expected. “Thanks, Mama. So do you.” She’s in her forties, a few inches shorter than Aubrey - 5’6, maybe 5’7 - and solid looking, with dark hair and dark eyes, surrounded by crows feet. 

“How’ve you been?” Mama asks, then turns to face them. She keeps an arm around Angie’s shoulders and walks her forward. “Kids, Barclay, Moira, this is Angie. She was with the Pineguard way back when.”

Aubrey does not miss the way Angie cringes at the mere mention of the Pineguard. “Hi!” Aubrey says, waving. Moira pulls her hairpin out with a sigh of relief and waves as well, the action much more refined than Aubrey’s.

“Your house is _rad,”_ Jake tells her. 

“Yes,” Dani says, quiet. “Thank you for letting us use it.”

Barclay shakes her hand. “Good to finally meet you. Thank you for letting us commandeer your house so often, it’s very kind of you.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Angie says. It comes out half mumbled. “My sister’s expectin’ me, I should probably head out, get out of y’alls hair.”

“Hold on a moment,” Mama says. Her smile and posture are easy, but her voice is the same kind of gentle-yet-assertive as when she’s about to drop some _life advice_ on Aubrey. Such advice has so far made Aubrey cry twice, call her dad for the first time in months, and start making her own laundry detergent, so there’s no telling what Angie could be in for. “It’s been a few years, mind if we catch up for a bit?”

Angie hesitates. 

“I’m sure Lilian wouldn’t mind if you were late,” Mama says. “But if you really do need to go, I understand.”

Angie sighs. “Sure,” she says. “I just put in a new swing on the back porch, we can go sit.”

“Great!” Mama says. “You got the stuff?” she asks Barclay over her shoulder, already walking back towards the house.

“Yup!” Barclay says, opening the back of the truck. 

Jake and Dani help Barclay carry the umbrellas and bags down past the house towards the water, given that they’re all stronger than Aubrey, whose main physical aspect is _gangly_ . She slips inside the house to find a bathroom to put her bathing suit on. She’s _very_ excited to have Dani see her in it.

When she gets outside, Moira is directing Dani and Jake as to where to put the umbrellas, and Barclay is fretting over their pile of bags.

He looks up at Aubrey as she approaches. “You look nice,” he says. “I think I forgot to pack the hamburgers.”

“You forgot -,” Dani says, looking up. She stops, her jaw hanging open.

Aubrey resists the urge to strike a pose. 

“I _packed_ it,” Barclay says, hands on his hips, “I just forgot to put the cooler in the trunk. I’m going to go cast myself into the lake.”

“Aubrey,” Dani says, completely ignoring him. _“Aubrey.”_

“Is it a good look?” Aubrey asks cheekily. “I thought it suited me. Being the _Lady Flame_ and all.”

“I think it looks like her crotch is on fire,” Jake says, and Dani elbows him in the gut. He folds over like a lawn chair, wheezing, and Dani covers her mouth with her hand, looking her up and down in a way that makes Aubrey’s face heat up. Dani’s cheeks are pink.

“I _can’t_ handle this,” Dani says finally. “I can’t handle this at _all.”_

Aubrey laughs, walking over so she can lean down and kiss her, slipping her hands into Dani’s back pockets. 

“You should change too,” Aubrey says, pulling back, putting two fingers on Dani’s lips as she chases after her. “You’ve been teasing me about the swimsuit forever, I wanna see it.”

Dani huffs in mock annoyance, then kisses the palm of Aubrey’s hand, walking to scoop a bag off the ground and heading back towards the house. She makes several long, greatly exaggerated looks over her shoulder as she trots back up the hill, and Aubrey laughs.

“Go change, you horndog!” she calls.

Dani turns to walk backwards and cups her hands around her mouth. “I can’t help it!” she yells. “You’re just too hot, and I can’t stop looking at you!”

Aubrey turns around to see Jake ripping his shirt off and throwing it into the sand while Barclay sets up a few chairs. He attempts to run towards the water, only for Barclay to catch him by the arm and haul him back.

“Sunscreen,” he commands, brandishing a spray can that he seems to have summoned from the ether. 

“But Barclay -,” Jake whines, and immediately is cut off with a blast of it to the back of his neck. He coughs. 

Barclay forces a now pouting Jake to sit down in the sand to _wait for it to soak in_ and advances on her next. “I trust you can do this yourself,” he says, “But do you want me to get your back?”

* * *

Aubrey sits on the edge of the dock, feet in the water. It’s rapidly approaching boiling outside, but she’s waiting for Dani. She can see the dense woods on the other side of the lake, and beyond Moira, Barclay, and Jake chatting and the birdsong, it’s quiet. The water is green, and almost perfectly still. She’s doing her best to try and sear it into her memory - the weathered grain of the sun bleached wood beneath her thighs and hands, how crisp the water is, the flicker of minnows darting around the supports, the burning heat of the sun - when there’s footsteps behind her.

Dani’s in a bikini, retro style, with a high waisted skirt that skims the top of her thighs and a halter top, showing off her chest and a strip of her belly. It’s navy blue with white polka dots. She smiles, and actually _does_ pose, popping out her hip, tossing her hair back over her shoulders and blowing a kiss.

“What do you think?” She asks, smiling, coy. Her ring is off, and her teeth are _very_ sharp.

Aubrey takes a second to force the words through her suddenly dry mouth. “I think I’m understanding how you felt earlier,” she says. “Dani, how in - you - I -,”

Dani sits down next to her. “I’m hot shit, huh?”

Aubrey laughs. “Oh my god, Dani, yes, yes you are, you’re _so_ pretty, and if you don’t kiss me right now I might _die.”_

Dani, the cruelest woman alive, leans in, and pushes her off the dock.

Aubrey comes up sputtering, doggy paddling for a few seconds until she realizes that the water only comes up to her chin. She lunges for Dani’s ankles, and Dani shrieks, laughing, and scrambles up onto the dock, out of reach. Aubrey hauls herself out of the lake.

“It’s like you hate me!” Aubrey says, spreading her arms wide, “Here I am, looking like a snack _just for you,_ and you _throw me into the water!”_

Dani is laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes. Jake sprints between them, skittering to a precarious halt at the very edge and turning back to face them.

“I go to join my brethren now,” he announces.

“For the last time!” Barclay shouts, _“There are no seals in West Virginia!”_

Jake T-poses, smiling in a way that one only can when they are completely at peace with the world, and falls backwards off the dock. 

He hits the water with a splash that sprays them both, and doesn’t come back up for a long moment.

A wrist cuff goes bobbing to the surface.

And then there’s a seal head, barking with laughter at the two of them.

Dani rolls her eyes, still wheezing with laughter. “The dramatics,” she says.

“Can you pick that up for me?” Jake asks them, looking at the floating wrist cuff, which is now becoming waterlogged and beginning to sink. “I don’t got hands,” he says, in his very babiest voice.

Dani kindly fishes it out of the water and sets it out to dry. Jake hauls in a huge, deep breath, slipping under the water, and then he’s off like a shot, out of sight in seconds.

Dani is still standing very close to the edge of the dock. Aubrey sweetly plants her hands on her girlfriend’s back and pushes her into the lake, then jumps in after her.

“Turnabout is fair play!” Aubrey says, swimming out until she can’t touch the bottom anymore. Dani swipes water out of her eyes and flips her hair back, giggling, then follows her so she can get within splashing range.

They get out of the water as Mama walks down to the shoreline, Angie at her side.

“- but I should actually head out now,” Angie is saying to Barclay. She looks significantly more relaxed. “Grill’s in the shed, charcoal’s with it, and feel free to use the kayaks.”

“Thank you,” Barclay says, and Aubrey hears splashing from behind them.

“Barclay!” Jake yells, somewhat muffled. “I fixed our problem!”

Barclay turns, and Aubrey watches as his face goes through a gamut of emotions - confusion, alarm, horror, bafflement, rage. _“No!”_ he shouts. Mama cackles, and Angie startles herself with her own laughter.

Aubrey looks to see Jake slogging up the beach. The sight makes her brain hurt, trying to decipher what it’s seeing, as though it just can’t comprehend something fundamental about this picture and it’s trying to come up with a different explanation. Jake doesn’t really have legs, he mostly looks like a seal wearing swim trunks, one that’s been split in half to the ‘waist’ and given knees. His flippered feet slap the sand. He has a fish clenched in his sharp teeth.

“What?” Aubrey hears herself say. Dani shrieks. Moira is snickering quietly in her chair.

“No!” Barclay shouts again. “Go throw that back!”

“But you said you forgot the meat!” Jake yells.

“That doesn’t mean I want _new_ meat!” Barclay yelps. “Go put that poor thing back where it came from or so help me Jake -,”

“I think it’s dead!” Jake says.

 _“Oh_ my God!” Barclay says.

“I’m just gonna eat it,” Jake says. Barclay sputters wordlessly. Jake goes to say something else, opening his jaw just a bit too wide, and the fish hits the sand and immediately begins flopping, apparently not dead.

“Uh,” Jake says. Mama, still cackling like a witch, walks over, picks up the fish, and throws it back into the water, where it splashes for a brief second before swimming away at what is probably its top speed.

“...I promise we won’t harass any more of your wildlife,” Barclay tells Angie, who is wheezing with laughter. “I am _so_ sorry.”

“You didn’t forget the burgers,” Mama says to Barclay, “I put ‘em in the kids car. Backseat floor between the seats.”

Barclay puts his face in his hands.

Angie, still laughing, says, “I’m glad that’s sorted then. It was good to meet you all.”

“You should come on down to the Lodge sometime,” Mama says. “Go on a hike, have lunch, perhaps. We always got plenty of food.”

Angie’s smile flickers slightly, but it’s less _awkward_ and more _sad._ “Maybe someday,” she says. “Nice seein’ you, Mama.”

“Is she… okay?” Dani asks once Angie’s crested the hill and is out of sight.

Mama sighs, smiling, but it’s rueful. “Guilt does funny things, Dani,” she says. “Even when you don’t got nothin’ to be guilty for. I’ll go get the burgers,” she tells Barclay, grabbing his hand and giving it a quick squeeze before walking away. 

“Where’s the sunscreen?” Dani asks. “I just realized I forgot it.”

“Here,” Moira says. She’s wearing her enormous sunhat even whilst sitting entirely in the shade of the umbrella, industriously spraying herself down with sunscreen that is, for the most part, going straight through her. Aubrey raises an eyebrow at her.

“I have very delicate skin,” Moira says, by way of explanation. “I have to be careful if I want to avoid age spots, especially now that I’m getting up there in years.”

“You don’t _have_ skin,” Aubrey says.

“I know,” Moira replies, serene. “That’s what makes it so delicate.”

“You also don’t age,” Dani says.

“I’ll be 506 years old next month,” Moira says, handing her the sunscreen.

“Really? Because you don’t look a day over three hundred, Moira,” Barclay says, unfolding a chair next to her and sitting down.

“You’re too kind to me,” she says, patting his arm.

Dani spritzes her legs, her chest and stomach, lifting up the straps of her swimsuit and spraying beneath them too before holding the can out to Aubrey with a smile that seems shy, almost. “Do you mind?” she asks.

Aubrey takes it from her, and when their fingers brush Aubrey feels her stomach jump, and she frowns, confused. Dani doesn’t notice, already turning around and lifting her wet hair up off the back of her neck. Barclay holds out a hair tie, and she takes it with a small laugh.

“How many of these do you carry around?” Dani asks as Aubrey mists the sunscreen over her shoulder blades.

“At least ten at all times,” Barclay says. “Because by the end of the day I’m down to three of them at the most. They’re worse than socks in the dryer.”

In her Sylvan form, Dani’s ears elongate slightly, stick out more. It’s on just the other side of human, but they’re not _elven_ in nature - if anything, they remind Aubrey of a bat. The pointed tips have already started to redden. Aubrey sprays a generous palmful of sunblock and rubs it into her ears, then turns Dani back around to swipe it across her cheeks.

“Let it set before you go in again, please,” Barclay says. Dani puffs out her cheeks and rolls her eyes. 

“Okay, _Mom,”_ she says. 

“Wouldn’t I be Dad?” Barclay asks.

“Mama’s dad,” Dani says, which makes perfect sense to Aubrey. “You are mom. _Literally everything_ Mama does is dad behavior. She was bragging to me the other day about how she wakes up at five in the morning, every morning, and less than ten minutes later she was asleep sitting up on the couch.”

“She even does the dad sleeping _pose,”_ Aubrey adds, backing her up. She does the best mock up of it she can whilst both standing and not being a dad - hands folded on her stomach, head bowed until her chin touches her chest. She sees Dani start to do the same just before she closes her eyes.

“I don’t have enough neck to do that, and my arms aren’t long enough,” Jake says. “I feel very left out.”

Dani snores, loudly, making Aubrey laugh hard enough to break the position.

“But she’s already _Mama,”_ Barclay explains, still confused.

“But she’s not _Mom,”_ Aubrey says.

“It’s a _name,_ not a title,” Moira explains at the same time. “There’s a difference. Listen to the kids, Barclay, they’re right.”

Barclay sighs, thinking. “I suppose you’re not wrong,” he says, finally.

“I’m gonna swim,” Jake says, turning back to the lake.

“Want me to wait with you?” Aubrey asks. 

Dani stretches up onto her tip-toes to kiss Aubrey’s cheek. “I think I’m gonna read my book for a bit, but thank you, sweetness.” 

Aubrey smiles at her, then tears off after Jake. “Hey, Jake!” she calls. He stops, turning towards her. “Have you seen literally _any_ movie with dolphins in it, at all, ever?” she asks. “There’s something I’ve literally always wanted to try.”

Hanging onto a seal-boy is a little different than hanging onto a dolphin - Jake ends up basically giving her a piggy-back ride - but they make it work, and it is _exactly_ as amazing as she thought it would be, even though she can’t really open her eyes underwater without wishing for death, and the visibility is shit anyways. Still. They go _very fast._

She tries again to take a snapshot of it to keep in her memory, as detailed as possible. It’s a habit borne out of both advice from therapy _(really try and remember the good things, Aubrey,_ her therapist had said, _so you can think about them in the bad times, when you’re panicking.)_ and from Mama’s letter _(I think about Amnesty Lodge, I think about it on a nice day.),_ and so far she thinks it works. An odd blend of mindfulness and memorization that has her trying to brand moments into her brain, much like this one. The sound of Jake’s laughter as well as her own, the feel of his soft, water slick fur against her arms and stomach, the cool of the lake around them and its spray against her face as they do laps, the whip of the breeze, the heat of the sun, the smell of the air. 

She wants it to last forever, preserved in amber like an insect, unchanged.

They pull back up to the dock, still giggling, although it’s wheezy on Jake’s part. He hauls himself up onto the dock, pulls his bracelet around his flipper using his teeth, and then flops down on the boards belly up, panting.

“You’re _heavy,”_ he says.

“Weakling,” she tells him.

“You haul _me_ around, then!” Jake says. 

“Do I _look_ like a swimmer?” Aubrey asks. “You’re a _seal!”_

“Right now I’m a human boy who is very tired,” Jake says. Aubrey laughs, splashes water up onto him.

“Go ahead,” he says, unmoving. “I’m too exhausted to care.”

“Thanks, Jake,” she says. “That was fun.”

“No prob, Aub,” he says. She wrinkles her nose at him even though he can’t see it, and swims ashore.

Mama’s back, sitting in the chair next to Barclay, who’s giving her a hand massage. She’s changed into her swimsuit - a sleeveless black rash guard and olive green swim trunks - making Barclay in his day clothes the odd one out. She also has on a pair of mirrored aviators and a baseball cap that says _Women want me, fish fear me._

Barclay looks up at her and visibly remembers something. “Mama,” he asks. “Am I the Lodge’s mom?”

“Yes,” Mama replies immediately. “Is that even a question? I’m dad, and you’re my beautiful wife whom I love very much.” 

Barclay laughs and lets her plant a kiss on his cheek. “I love you too,” he says. Moira gags politely into her book.

Aubrey pulls another towel out of one of the bags and quickly dries off, then sits down next to Dani, who’s curled up on a quilt in the sand, now wearing a large, floppy sun hat with a pink bow.

“I’m mad,” Dani says, without looking up.

“About what?” Aubrey asks.

Dani turns another page in her book. “Tomatoes.”

Aubrey bites back her laugh. “Oh?”

“And Florida. I think we need to revolt against the agriculture industry immediately,” she says. “Did you know that tomatoes are less nutritious now than they were in the 60’s? And they’re harvested using literal slave labor? I’m going to throw _up!”_ Dani snaps the book shut and wids up as if to pitch it into the lake, then pauses, sighing, and puts it down onto the quilt gently, patting the cover apologetically. “Barclay,” Dani declares, “We need to make the lodge into an actual farm so we don’t have to buy _anything_ from the grocery store ever again.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Barclay says with the air of a man who has no intention of doing anything of the sort.

“I _do_ want chickens,” Mama says, nudging his calf with her foot.

“We’re not getting chickens, we have enough going on,” Barclay says. “We have this conversation every spring, Mama.”

“A flock of sheep, perhaps?” Moira says. “I could take up spinning again.”

“That could be fun. I like mutton,” Mama muses. “We could get a sheep dog too - Jake’s been wanting a dog for a while now.” 

Barclay puts his head in his hands.

“We’re getting chickens,” Dani whispers to Aubrey. “Maybe not this year, but eventually. I want them, Mama wants them, and Barclay’s already paying Juno Devine a shit ton for eggs from her chickens. It’s only a matter of time.”

Dani stretches her arms above her head, cracks her neck. Her hair’s dried, somewhat, falling from its messy bun in pieces that alternate fluffy yellow and damp gold. She twists to rifle through the tote bag next to her, and Aubrey’s eyes fall on the stripe of exposed skin at her mid back, taking in the little mole next to her spine, the way her stomach pokes out from her bikini, the cowlick along her hairline behind her left ear. Dani had shaved the back of her head before Aubrey had met her, apparently, and half of the hair there is still too short and stubborn to stay up in a topknot. She has a brown birthmark smack between her shoulder blades.

Aubrey presses a small kiss to it. “You’re gorgeous,” she says.

 _“You’re_ gorgeous,” Dani replies, pulling her sketchbook out and clicking the mechanical pencil stuck in the rings a few times as she flips it open. “Wanna be my model, hot stuff?”

Aubrey flops back onto the towel on her stomach, pillowing her head on her arms and kicking her feet up like a schoolgirl chatting with her crush on the phone. If she had enough hair to twirl some around her finger, she would. “Insert Titanic reference here,” she says, winking. Dani laughs, resting her sketchbook on her knees.

The sun gets in Aubrey’s eyes, so she shuts them, feeling the heat of it pulsing into her, the warm weave of the quilt. Mama and Barclay are joking behind her about chicken coop designs, turning into white noise with the scratch of graphite on paper.

* * *

Aubrey opens her eyes to Dani crouched next to her, one hand on her shoulder. 

“Mm?” Aubrey says, then blinks hard a few times. She feels overheated and sweaty. “Wait, did I fall asleep?”

“Sure did,” Dani says, soft. “You missed Jake pushing Mama into the lake, but you also skipped all of her theatrics when Barclay put on his swimsuit, so it’s a mixed bag, really.”

“How long was I out?” Aubrey asks, pushing herself up until she’s sitting. Her left hand feels like a statick-y TV screen, and she shakes it out, wincing.

“Well, lunch is almost ready,” Dani says, shrugging. “I figured you might wanna go for a dip or something before you eat, ‘cause it’s hot in the sun.”

“Yeah, Christ,” Aubrey says, swiping a hand across her forehead. “I’m sweating like a pig.”

“It gives you a lovely dewy glow,” Dani says teasingly. Aubrey smiles at her, catching her hand and giving it a quick squeeze before walking towards the water.

She takes a running dive off the dock, hearing someone start to cheer in the split second before her head breaks through the water, and then there’s silence. She swims for a few seconds, wondering how far out she can get in one shot, and then something _touches her_ and she lashes out.

She breaks the surface with a gasp, wiping her eyes and kicking back to shore in some primal panic before she sees the blurry white and orange shape of Jake bulleting around her.

“Jake!” she shouts. “You _asshole!”_

He pops up like a cork next to her. “You hit me!” he says, sounding scandalized.

Aubrey is going to have to throttle him. He must see the murder in her eyes, because he snorts and dips back under the water before she gets within strangulation distence.

Aubrey huffs and swims back to shore, where Dani is waiting with Aubrey’s towel, a paper plate, and a smile. She wraps the towel around her shoulders and sits down cross legged next to Dani, taking a bite of her cheeseburger. Their elbows brush, as do their knees. Dani steals a potato chip off of Aubrey’s plate, even though she still has plenty on her own. Barclay’s at the grill, shirtless, wearing his swim trunks that are nearly indecently short. Aubrey’s pretty sure that he keeps taking them up, and with the next alteration half of his ass is going to be hanging out. Mama has a hand on the small of his back, feeding him a dorito while he flips a burger.

“If you see two halves of someone’s butt, does it count as one singular whole cheek?” Aubrey asks, mouth still somewhat full. Dani laughs, almost choking.

“Different halves of different cheeks or the same half of each cheek?” Dani asks.

“Half of each.”

“No,” she decides. 

“No?”

“No, because the bottom of a butt and the top of a butt look different.” Dani explains. “If I give you the bottom half of two apples, I didn’t give you a whole apple, right?”

Aubrey shakes her head. “I don’t think they look _that_ different. A butt is a butt no matter what part you’re looking at. I’m an expert in butt anatomy.”

“Didn’t realize you were a butt scientist,” Dani scoffs, smiling. 

“Got my degree in buttology last spring,” Aubrey confirms. “Can I see the drawings you did?”

Dani hands her the sketchbook, and Aubrey flips to near the back, skimming the pages she’s already seen until she finds the newest ones. She adores Dani’s art. Her more cartoon sketches are bubbly and bouncy, flickering with barely contained energy on the page, charming the viewer with their animation. 

In her realistic art, her lines are delicate, smooth, purposeful, and she breathes life into the details of things. Her colors are either pale, washed out and ethereal, or vivid and moody with no in between. She has a way of making everything look light as air, hair floats about faces, bodies hover in the spaces she places them, everything hangs, suspended in time. Her art straddles the line between otherworldly and achingly realistic, ghostly and grounded, and it does so effortlessly.

Not all of today’s sketches are of her. Some are of Mama and Barclay, of Moira, of Jake. One is Angie’s oval face - it’s wispy as though half remembered, her eyes flat and her lips only half drawn, no shading in the shape of her hair. There’s a sketch of Mama that was clearly abandoned, surrounded by a multitude of eraser marks and faded lines. A little cartoon bust of Dani is pictured to the side of it, dragging nubby little fingers down her face and proclaiming _what are hands?!?!_ with clear distress. 

There’s a few sketches of herself sleeping, almost doodles, and a tiny half formed landscape in the corner of one of the pages. 

She turns to the last page to see herself, sleeping, in full detail, waiting for inks. The sun sparkles off the water behind her, the details precise enough to see sweat on her forehead. She looks peaceful, quiet, deliberate attention paid to the stretchmarks on her thighs and hips, the hair on her legs, the tiny coils of her undercut. Dani has made the curve of her spine seem languid, captured the way the sand shifts to accommodate her feet, toes partially buried, her skin rich and gleaming even in the greyscale of pencil on paper.

Aubrey brushes her fingertips over the trees across the lake, smiling down at the title at the bottom of the page - _Sleeping Beauty._ She takes a bite of her cheeseburger.

She remembers being seven years old, suddenly, sitting on the counter as her mother chopped bell peppers next to her, digging a spoon into a bowl of ice cream. Her knee is bandaged - she thinks she had just fallen off of her bike, or her skateboard, or any of her other various wheeled deathtraps that she’d enjoyed over the years. She’d been crying, that’s why she was having ice cream before dinner.

“Are you in love with daddy?” she asked. She’d been watching a lot of Barbie movies, love and marriage was on her mind. Her mother laughed.

“I would hope so,” she said. “I married him, after all.”

“Will I be in love?” she asks.

“Hopefully, pumpkin,” her mother said. “Love is great!”

Aubrey remembers wrinkling her nose. “Do I have to marry a _boy?”_ she asked, making her mother laugh again. She’d get over the _boys have cooties_ phase in a few months with a crush on a boy whose name she now forgets. There used to be a photo of her holding his hand in their halloween costumes in one of her mother’s photo albums.

“No,” she said. “You can marry a girl. In this state, anyways.”

“I’m gonna marry Vanessa Lark then,” Aubrey declared, sticking her spoon into the ice cream - strawberry, she thinks, she’d been all about strawberries back then. “She’s my best friend.”

“I can’t wait for the wedding,” her mother said, smiling. 

Aubrey ate a little bit more of her ice cream.

“When will I know I’m in love?” she asked. Her mother didn’t answer.

“Mommy,” she whined, hopping down from the counter and wrapping her arms around her mother’s hips. She’d been a short seven year old, and she didn’t start to shoot up until sixth grade, when she grew nearly two feet in as many years and towered over everyone for a long while. She still towers over some people now, even.

“I’m thinking,” her mother said, pausing in her chopping to put a hand on Aubrey’s head for a moment. “That’s a very smart question, honeybunch.” 

Slightly mollified, Aubrey sighed and rested her forehead against her mother’s side.

“I don’t know the answer, I’m afraid,” her mother said. “There’s a lot of love out there, Aubrey, all different kinds. The kind of love I’m in with your daddy, it - it doesn’t happen all at once. That love is a process, and it’s _work,_ too. We’re still building it up, even to this day! I think I was in love with him for a long time before I even knew about it, and it was a while more before I told him about it.” Her mother reached over, picked up the bowl off the counter, and scooped up the last remaining bit, holding it in front of Aubrey’s mouth. “Last bite,” she said, and Aubrey ate it off the spoon.

Her mother put the dishes in the sink, still talking. “I know that’s not the answer you want, but I think,” she said, putting a hand on Aubrey’s shoulder and smiling down at her. “I think you’ll just know, alright? Maybe they’ll smile at you, or hold your hand, maybe you’ll even think of this conversation, and you’ll know it in your heart. Okay?”

“Okay,” Aubrey said. “Can I watch -,”

“No,” her mother said immediately. “You just had ice cream. You can go read a book, or go play. No TV tonight.”

In the present, Aubrey’s mouthful of previously delicious cheeseburger suddenly feels like dust. She chokes it down, fighting back a cough, and gently shuts Dani’s sketchbook.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” she says, getting to her feet. Her voice sounds very far away. Dani smiles up at her, patting her on the calf as she walks by, and her skin prickles at the contact. Moira looks over at her from her book. Aubrey can feel her eyes on her back all the way up the hill.

She locks herself in the bathroom and takes several deep breaths, splashes cold water on her face, looks in the mirror at herself. The face looking back at her is familiar and yet not. Her hair is both longer and shorter than she expects it to be, red dye faded to brassy rose-gold, her eyes brilliant orange when they should be hazel. Her face is her face, but it’s her mother’s too, their high cheekbones, their pointed chin, their high forehead.

“Okay,” she tells herself, watches her mouth move. Water trickles down her temple. “This is _okay,”_ she says. “You’re in - you lo -,” The words die in her throat, she inhales sharply, tries again, restates it in language she knows how to use. “How you’re feeling is _okay.”_

She knows it, and she thinks she’s known it for a _while._ But she can’t think it. She can’t say it. She wonders how they’d taste on her tongue, what shapes her lips would form.

She’s said - she’s said _it_ to people before, her parents and her friends, obviously. But also to her boyfriend in her freshman year of high school, and her girlfriend in her sophomore-junior years. She’s said _it_ occasionally to the brief partners she’s had since, repeating their own words back to them, feeling like a puppet, a parrot, making plans to leave immediately. With them it really had only been like, _two weeks at most_ of what she _thought_ was casual dating. That was only when they seemed a little crazy, not just sad. The sad ones she’d explain to, gently, that she wasn’t _staying,_ wasn’t putting down roots, any dating was to try and curb some of the loneliness of constantly moving. She was only hanging around just long enough to bring in the money to get to her next stop on the road, and then she’d be gone again, so sorry you got attached.

Then she set a hotel on fire. And Mama had pointed a gun at her, invited her into her truck, and Aubrey, perhaps a little overtired, perhaps exhausted of bus and train hopping, perhaps on the verge of an _episode_ spurred on by the heat, the crackle, the stink of house fire, had climbed in.

And she’d met Dani.

She thinks her mom - her mom hadn’t liked her high school girlfriend. She’d been _okay_ with her freshman year boyfriend, because it was freshman year, and they dated for three months of lukewarm makeout sessions, but she had _not_ liked Aubrey’s girlfriend. Their constant on/off relationship and the combined hormonal moodiness of two girls in high school had Aubrey crying far more than her mother thought was necessary. She thinks her mom -

She thinks her mom would have liked to meet Dani.

Aubrey’s breath hitches _hard_ on the inhale, and she holds it for a long moment, feeling her eyes prickle. She grinds the heels of her palms into her eyes, because if she cries now, it’ll be her _whole_ day. Her eyes will swell up. Everyone will know. She can’t ruin their beach day because she’s just figured out that she - that she -

 _“Fuck,”_ she whispers. 

It feels too big to hold in her hands. The words are too big for her mouth, the thought is too big for her brain, but she’s not scared of or by it.

Her mother was right. She sits down on the toilet lid, draws her knees up to her chest, puts her chin on them and hugs them close. It was a process, it didn’t happen all at once, days and days and weeks and months of sharing spaces and swapping pieces of each other until everything slid into place, and they fit together neatly like a puzzle. A tangled web of comfortable silences and companionship through crying jags, little moments where Aubrey said without words, _I feel safe around you._ The feeling’s been here a while, she thinks, weeks, months, probably - she’d just been too busy to notice it, and it’d slipped in too quietly to make any waves.

Her body wants to have the same type of cry she had when Mama had made it official that the Lodge was her _home_ now, sobbing in her dry bathtub fully clothed, completely overwhelmed, clutching paint chips and Dr. Bonkers to her chest until she felt raw, but clean, only she can’t let it, not right now. She’d been transient for a while. Bus stops and train stations and couch surfing have a way of turning one into a ghost. Not like Moira, who is grounded, real, but a movie ghost, wandering through life ceaselessly, drifting through space, nearly invisible and missing pieces. This settling down, this admittance - she doesn’t know if it’s something she’s allowed to have. It means she’s staying for good.

She doesn’t know if that’s something she’s allowed to do.

She thinks she could spend the rest of her life with Dani. The thought makes something feel like it’s splintering inside her lungs, but she can see it unfolding too. When they’re older, more settled in, they could live in a cottage in the woods with a garden out back. She could learn how to take care of chickens, work at the general store with Leo and take it over when he retires, help Kirby rebrand the Cryptonomica, work at the Lodge when she’s not busy, be home to Dani every night, build up their lives together. She wants the _work_ that her mother had talked about. Somehow she can envision this future, but can’t think the words that make the vision possible. 

She wants it more than she’s ever wanted something in her life. She used to want fame, notoriety, but she thinks she’s found something else out here, something better. If she wants it so bad, she should go and get it. It’s not the hardest thing in the world, she’s made tough choices before to chase a dream, and this? It’s not tough at all.

She stands up, feeling a little resolved, and immediately has to sit back down again when she thinks - _what if Dani doesn’t want you back?_

Her therapist, a very long time ago, had spent multiple sessions going over rational vs. irrational thoughts and fears. She’s sure she was given coping mechanisms for when her brain knows something but her heart tries to convince her otherwise, but she can’t remember them.

If she confesses to Dani, and Dani says - says -

She’d say what Aubrey had told people, probably. _I’m very sorry you got attached, but I really only meant for this to be a fling._ Dani could just be going along with it like Aubrey did a few times, because she doesn’t know how to break it off cleanly. They live in the same house. Dani doesn’t have the luxury of moving on like Aubrey did, slipping out the door onto the next greyhound and leaving whatever burner phone whose number she gave out to her Tinder matches or bar hookups in the wastebasket. Dani’s tethered to the people at the lodge, to the hot spring that keeps her going, the archway back to her homeworld. If Aubrey’s been intruding this whole time, Dani can’t _leave._

Aubrey bites down on the inside of her lip until there’s a little burst of blood in her mouth. 

She, not for the first time, wants to call her mother.

 _Hi mom,_ she’d say. _Hi mom, I love you. I need help._

 _Talk to her about it, baby,_ her mother would say, maybe. _If it doesn’t work out, come home, and I can help you pick up the pieces._

She wants to tell her mom about Dani’s hair and Dani’s smile and Dani’s eyes and her art and her compassion and her sparkling laugh, how she cries whenever somebody else does, even if it’s just on TV. She wants to say that Dani’s the kindest person she’s ever met, wholeheartedly empathetic and endlessly funny, that Dani makes her want to be more open, more honest, more kind, a better person and a better friend, every day. She wants to be _with_ Dani - she wants to be _Dani’s girl,_ forever. 

_Well,_ she thinks her mother would say, a smile in her voice, _she sounds like a lovely young lady._

She has to squeeze her eyes shut until all the tears die back down, and then she goes and retrieves her phone from the car. She can’t call her mother, and her father - well. He’d answer, he’d be overjoyed to hear from her, but hearing that she’s found a place that she wants to stay, a place that isn’t home? 

It’d hurt them both. She loves him. He loves her. They just both aren’t quite sure how to make that love work anymore.

Aubrey goes back inside and thinks about hiding in the bathroom for longer. Bathrooms aren’t judgmental about breakdowns, they’ll wrap you up in their porcelain and contain it for you. But Aubrey would like to _not_ be having a breakdown about something that is, objectively, not a bad thing, so she goes and sits at the kitchen table. Angie’s kitchen is white all over - cabinets, tile, backsplash, walls, but the table is a deep brown, clearly antique, with matching chairs. It’s round and small, could fit maybe four people if they squeezed. There’s a green placemat made from woven plastic in the space Aubrey sits at, and the rest is barren. She digs a blunt nail into the grooves, ignores the truly _horrific_ amount of message notifications lighting her screen up red, and starts to create a new group chat with her closest couple of friends. 

She balks, suddenly. She hasn’t contacted anyone in… months. She’s gone dark for days before - her ADHD makes it so she’d open a message and forget to reply, or just not look at her phone - but in a few short months it’ll have been a year since she’d said anything to her friends. 

… They’ll probably be very angry at her. Which is fair, they have every right to be, but she doesn’t know if she can deal with that currently. 

The sliding door that leads onto the back porch rattles open. Aubrey jumps and whirls around as best she can in the chair.

“Hey, kiddo,” Mama says. She slides the door shut behind her. “You okay? You’ve been in here a while.”

Aubrey nods, probably a little too quickly. “Just peachy, Mama!” she chirps. 

One of Mama’s eyebrows slowly climbs higher and higher. Aubrey chews on the inside of her cheek.

Mama takes off her hat, then goes and sits down next to her, sighing as she lowers herself into the chair and her knees crack. “Aubrey, y’don’t gotta lie to me,” she says. “I am, ah, rather _difficult_ to lie to -,”

“I know, it’s kinda frustrating,” Aubrey interrupts, mostly accidentally. She just couldn’t manage to keep her mouth shut, it happens when she gets nervous.

“ - And Moira said you looked a bit upset. Dani was fixin’ to come on up here after you, but I thought it might be heat exhaustion, and she’s all nervous ‘bout first aid stuff, so I came up.”

Aubrey tries very hard not to look any sort of way when Dani’s name is mentioned, but either her careful neutrality or something in her face gives her away. Mama’s expression softens further, and she reaches out and gently picks her phone up and puts it flat on the table to cover both of Aubrey’s hands with her own.

“Is somethin’ wrong between you and Dani?” Mama asks. Aubrey looks down at their hands on the table - her own dwarfed like baby birds within Mama’s wide, calloused palms - and thinks about Dani’s cartoonishly distraught self portrait, how adorable it was. She has to bite her lip hard to keep her eyes from welling up again.

“Are hands just hard for all artists?” she asks, pushing through her voice cracking on the final word. “Do you struggle with them too?”

“Aubrey,” Mama says. “If somethin’ is goin’ on, you can tell me. Dani’s my girl, yeah, but so are _you,_ kiddo. You can _talk_ to me -,”

“No!” Aubrey says, momentarily screwing her eyes shut. “Nothing’s wrong! Nothing’s ever wrong - things are good, they’re _great,_ she’s the _best,_ Mama, she’s _always_ the best.”

“Then what -,”

“I think I - I think…” Aubrey trails off. She can feel tears dripping down her cheeks. She tries to force the words out of her larynx, but they have yet to make any forward progress, stuck there like a rock. “She’s the best.” Aubrey settles for, making desperate eye contact to try and convince Mama that she means it, and what she means by it. “I’ve never met anyone like her.”

“I know,” Mama says, giving her hands a squeeze. “She’s real great.”

“Yeah,” Aubrey says. “She is, and I was looking at her _art_ and I - I… I _realized_ that I… and I just started thinking that I wish she could have -,” her voice breaks, she heaves in a huge, shuddering breath, “I wish my mom could have met her.”

She shuts her eyes again. She hears Mama scooch her chair over close, and lets it happen when she puts an arm around her shoulders, draws Aubrey into a hug. Aubrey tucks her face into Mama’s chest and cries. Mama rubs her back, murmurs things like _I’m sorry_ and _it’s okay_ and _let it out, I’ve got you._

Aubrey eventually pulls back, a little chagrined. It’s always mortifying to cry around other people, and Mama is no exception, even though she tries obviously and hard to keep it from being that way. Dani is one of the only people Aubrey can cry around all willy-nilly, mostly because the second she starts, so does Dani, because she’s the biggest sympathy crier in the world. It’s less embarrassing, somehow, knowing she’s not going to be the only one with a red nose and a puffy face.

Mama passes her a napkin from the little metal holder Angie has on the middle of her table, rubbing her back in slow circles. Aubrey wipes her eyes and blows her nose, then stands up.

“What’dya need, kiddo?” Mama asks. “I’ll g-,”

“I got it,” Aubrey says, perhaps a little sharper than she meant to be. She makes her voice go softer. “Thanks.”

She wets a paper towel in the coldest the tap will go, presses it to her eyes and her nose to try and minimize the swelling and redness. She doesn’t want Dani knowing about this.

“So,” Mama says. “Am I correct in my assumption that you realized you’re in love with Dani?” Aubrey can’t tell what her tone is - somewhere between matter-of-fact and sympathetically upset.

“Yeah,” Aubrey says. 

“You gonna tell her?”

“No,” Aubrey says. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Mama asks. Aubrey can picture the face she’s making, the confused furrow of her brow, the set of her jaw, the slight twist of her lips.

“I can’t figure out how to _say_ it,” she says. “I don’t want to make her uncomfortable if she - if she doesn’t feel the same.”

Mama doesn’t quite laugh - it’s more a disbelieving exhale - but it makes Aubrey flinch all the same, take off the paper towel. “Sorry,” Mama says immediately, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “I don’t mean to laugh, it’s just… I _don’t_ think you’d make Dani uncomfortable, Aubrey.”

“Maybe,” Aubrey says, getting the paper towel cold again. “But why risk it?”

Mama exhales. Aubrey has her back to her, but she hears her stand up, cross the kitchen to lean on the counter next to her. She puts a hand on Aubrey’s shoulder.

“I think you should tell her. Find a time and just say it. If it doesn’t work out... Well.” Mama sighs, shifts closer and presses a kiss to her temple. “We’ll figure it out, kiddo. I’ll help you figure it out.”

Aubrey doesn’t start crying again, but it is a near thing.

To her credit, she does _try_ and find the time to say it. She comes back down to the lake with Mama, tells a worried Dani that _no, she’s okay, the heat just got to her, it’s better now._ Dani flutters nervously around her for a while, making sure she has enough water and won’t overexert herself before grabbing her by the wrist and bringing her to the spot in the woods where there’s lady slippers.

“Aren’t they neat?” Dani asks. She’s crouched down on a blanket of brown pine needles in a patch of leafy green plants, Aubrey at her side. The flowers are a soft pink little bells on delicate stems, smelling sweet and faint. Dani cups one in her palms, ever gentle, and breathes in with her eyes fluttering shut. Aubrey’s heart jumps in her chest. _Of course,_ Aubrey thinks, _of course, how did I not figure this out before?_ “They’re one of my favorites,” Dani continues. “I think they’re really unique looking.”

“Dani,” Aubrey starts, swallows, stops. 

“Hm?” Dani asks. She looks over at Aubrey. Her orange eyes and the glow in her chest and cheeks are bright in the shade. She has a strand of her hair caught in her eyelashes.

“They’re really pretty,” Aubrey says, reaching out and tucking the hair behind Dani’s ear. “Thank you for showing me them.”

“We got some back at home too,” Dani says. “Some of them are even yellow. I’ll have to show you sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Aubrey replies, wondering when exactly the Lodge became _home_ for her as well.

* * *

She almost says it again as Dani invites her to chicken fight after thoroughly thrashing Jake on Mama’s shoulders. Dani’s got her arms thrown up onto the dock beside Aubrey, smiling, her hair slicked down with water. 

“I could use someone new, y’know? An actual challenge,” she says, winking. “I know all of Jake's weak spots.”

“You just want to get your hands on me,” Aubrey teases. 

“Who wouldn’t?” Dani replies, and then kisses her knee. “You’re beautiful.”

Aubrey feels the words catch and tangle in her throat, her exhale is strangled, she can feel her pulse in her fingertips. 

“You only won because Mama is a _tank!”_ Jake calls. “Winning by the virtue of a superior brawling partner is not winning, Dani!”

“Hey!” Barclay says, affronted. “I’m _Bigfoot,_ how am I not a tank?”

Dani rolls her eyes. Her pupils are pinpricks in the bright sun, the point of one of her teeth catches her bottom lip. “Looks like I gotta go kick his ass again,” she says.

“Good luck,” Aubrey says, willing herself not to sound so breathless.

“Who needs luck?” Dani asks, grinning, then pushes off the dock to swim back over to Jake.

* * *

Aubrey texts the groupchat she has with her close friends - about eight of them, including herself - sitting under the umbrella with Moira, who is now most of the way through her book and doing a great job of pretending not to be glancing over at Aubrey in carefully measured concern.

 _hey guys,_ Aubrey writes, _long time no see. sorry ive been out of touch but life got fuckin wack for me for a while. i now live in the radio quiet zone in west virginia so theres no signal (i KNOW, i also didnt know that existed) so i really couldnt text. but things have calmed down a lot. i promise im safe & im SO happy you would not believe it. i would say call me & you can yell at me for goin fuckin dark but im currently at the beach with my girlfriends(!!!!!!!!!!!!) family/my kind of adopted family (i know.) and id like to spend time w/ them. gfs name is Dani shes amazing and yall would adore her. anyways im happy and healthy and have not been sex trafficked pls uncall whatever cops u have called in my absence!! love, aub _

She pauses, then types out her new email. _write to me here,_ she adds, _so we can actually keep in touch lol_

Unsurprisingly, her phone immediately blows up with texts.

A lot of them are strings of exclamation points and her name, some are iterations of _bitch you scared the shit out of me never vanish like that again,_ and a few just say _GIRLFRIEND?!?!?!_

Iris says, _i need proof of life or this is just a particularly enterprising serial killer send a pic w yr finger on your nose._

“Moira,” Aubrey asks, opening her front camera, “Do you know what a selfie is?”

“Of course,” Moira says, without looking up from her book. “I’m old, not dead.”

Aubrey decides to ignore that. “Wanna take one with me? It’s going to my friends, so you’ll need your hairpin.”

Moira sighs, folding down a corner of her book and pulling her hairpin out of her bag, gathering her hair into a bun and sliding it in with a practiced, fluid motion.

Aubrey puts a finger on her nose, smiling with her eyes shut to disguise the color change. Moira looks on serenely in the background.

 _thats Moira,_ she writes, _shes a family friend_

 _Does that milf have DMs i can slide into?_ Sierra asks. _Milfs hmu..._

Aubrey laughs.

“What does MILF mean?” Moira asks, reading over her shoulder.

“Uh,” Aubrey says, horror crawling up her spine.

“I’m kidding,” Moira says, going back to her book. “I know what a MILF is. Tell Sierra I’m very flattered but about five hundred years too old for her. Or them, or him. I shouldn’t assume.”

Aubrey does.

 _WHY WOULD YOU TELL HER I SAID THAT????_ Sierra replies.

 _bitch do you have a MULLET?!?!_ Cass asks. _what has WEST FUCKING VIRGINIA done to you!!!_

Aubrey claps a hand to the back of her neck. _I DONT!!! ITS JUST GROWING OUT I NEED A HAIRCUT!!! WHY R U BEING MEAN TO ME!!_

 _I need gf pics or she didn’t happen!_ El says.

Aubrey sends the photo of Dani sleeping in the car. She spends a long second zooming in on it, looking at the fan of Dani’s eyelashes on her cheeks, the warm hues of the sun and the green of the trees out the window. She thinks about being back there, putting a hand on her thigh. Dani would wake up and look over at her, eyes bleary, and Aubrey would say, _hey, I lo -_

She hits send. _What a babe!!!!!_ El replies, and the groupchat goes wild again.

“Hey Dani,” Aubrey says. “Wanna model for my friends?”

Dani pulls her ring out of her bag and poses the same way she did for Aubrey earlier, then sits down next to her and laughs as the texts flood in, filled with heart emojis.

“They’re so nice!” Dani laughs, “I love them!”

“They only tell the truth,” Aubrey says, and thank god the words come out like her heart _didn’t_ just stop in her chest. Dani kisses her on the cheek, which Aubrey takes another photo of and sends it.

* * *

Jake brings a bunch of smooth, flat stones ashore, and Dani teaches her how to skip rocks, Mama occasionally showing them up or critiquing form in the background. Dani grabs and turns her hand to be more parallel to the water, and Aubrey almost says _Dani, I lo -_

Dani has Aubrey braid her hair so she can help Barclay on the grill for dinner. Aubrey gently divides her hair into sections, kneeling behind her, watching Dani glow in the stretching evening, ring off again, and almost says _Dani, I lo -_

Dani brings her dinner, _(Dani, I lo -)_ Dani helps her as she tries to dunk Jake in the water, _(Dani I lo -)_ Dani helps her catch fireflies, _(Dani,)_ Dani sprays her down with bug spray, _(Dani I,)_ Dani laughs and smiles and _(Dani I’ve been,)_ jokes and jostles _(Dani I want to keep,)_ and kisses her as the sun finally disappears beyond the horizon on the end of the dock like they’re all alone, like they’ve never been apart.

Aubrey holds Dani’s hand. Aubrey braids her hair. Aubrey reties the top strings of her bikini when they start looking loose, hands her the sunscreen when it seems like she’s forgetting to reapply. Aubrey picks daisies and makes a flower crown for her, asks her for names of the birds that swoop overhead. Aubrey can’t force the words out of her mouth, but she _can_ make Dani laugh until she cries, so she tries to do that as much as possible. She tells Dani the names of some of the visible constellations - different on Earth than on Sylvain - and the planets, Ursa Major, Jupiter, Leo. 

She kisses Dani back like maybe she can convey what she wants to say without using the words at all.

“Girls, time to pack it up,” Mama calls from the shoreline. 

Dani pulls back, keeping her hands on the back of Aubrey’s head and on her shoulder. They’re both breathing a little hard, Dani’s lips are puffy and reddened in the dying light. Dani presses their foreheads together and shuts her eyes, smiling, and then they go help clean up. Aubrey helps Dani to her feet.

“Is Barclay driving?” Moira asks, gently sliding the last chair into the back of Mama’s truck.

“Yep,” Mama says, shutting the back. 

“Jake and I will come with you then,” Moira says, grabbing Jake by the snout as he starts to open it in confusion and marching him to the open backseat door with an ease that’s surprising, given that she is incorporeal and Jake is a seal.

“Looks like it’s you and me then,” Dani says, bumping Aubrey’s hip with her own. “I promise not to fall asleep on you this time.”

They both agree to listen to the radio until they get back to the quiet zone because Aubrey wants to know what music she’s missing. 

As it turns out, not much. They both mock their way through two and a half overwhelmingly heterosexual pop songs before Aubrey puts the mixtape back on, shaking her head in disappointment. They belt the songs, one of them filling in the gaps the other forgets, and turning it down low when one of them thinks of something to say. Aubrey pointedly keeps her eyes on the road. She has a track record with cars - they’re a magnet for big decisions and important conversations. She came out to her parents, broke up with her high school girlfriend, had her first kiss, and lost her virginity, all in a car. If she looks over at Dani - who she knows will be bathed in red from Mama’s tail lights or washed out in the glow of oncoming traffic, beautiful either way - she might crack. 

Aubrey learns when Dani got into art (she started drawing as a child, then never quit doing it), what the scars on her lips are from (having sharp teeth makes biting your lip a lot worse and more common, every vampiric Sylph has some), and that Dani had came out as a five year old, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“I said I wanted to be a mom,” she says. They’re back in Kepler now on, on the outskirts, and Aubrey doesn’t really want the drive to be over yet, so she’s been going slower and slower, letting Mama’s truck disappear up the familiar winding roads. “And my dad was like, well, sweetheart, you’ll be a dad, because you’re a boy, and I just started crying. And he couldn’t figure out how to fix it, so he called my mom over, who told me the same thing, and apparently I got _mad,”_ Dani laughs, and Aubrey catches her shake her head out of the corner of her eye. “And I said that I was a _girl,_ and I was going to be a _mom,_ not a _dad,_ and that night I tried to run away.”

“Did you?” Aubrey asks, grinning. “How’d that go?”

“Well, I was five,” Dani says, “So all I did was pack like, a cheese stick and my blanket and my teddy bear and walk down the street. My mom came and picked me up five minutes later and asked me if I was sure I was a girl, and I said yes. The rest is history, I guess. I think you’d like my mom, she’s real fun.”

Aubrey looks over at Dani, who looks back at her, smiling softly. Her ring is on, so she’s barely visible in the dim light from the radio. Aubrey can just see the crinkle around her eyes, the dimple in her left cheek. The car smells like sunscreen and bug spray, a hint of apples from the air freshener hung around the rearview mirror, but for a second, Aubrey thinks she smells the lemon and magnolia of her mother’s perfume.

Aubrey pulls over. Gravel crunches under the wheels as they roll to a stop.

“Aubrey?” Dani asks, alarmed. Aubrey turns the car off, cutting the music and throwing them into near total darkness, the moon new and faint overhead. 

“What’s going on?” Dani asks. “I - are you okay? You’ve been off all day and I was worried but Mama said not to and that you were fine so I tried to leave you alone about it but now you’re actually freaking me out. Are you alright?”

She tries to turn on the overhead light, and Aubrey turns it off again. She doesn’t think she can see Dani’s face when she gets turned down.

“Aubrey,” Dani says. “Baby, what’s wrong? Did I do something?”

 _“No,”_ Aubrey says. Her voice is thick, and she can feel hot tears on her cheeks. 

Dani unbuckles her seatbelt and inches as close as she can with the console between them, taking both of Aubrey’s hands in her own. They’re warm. “What’s happening?” she asks. Her voice shakes. 

Aubrey shuts her eyes. “When I first came here,” she starts, and then has to clear her throat. “When I first came to Kepler, after I killed the first abomination, Mama, uh. Wrote me a letter. It was to convince me to stay, but she talked about what - what grounded her, what kept her going.” Dani hums an affirmative, pressing her lips to the back of Aubrey’s hands, holding them to her cheek. 

“She talked about Amnesty Lodge, and she mentioned - she mentioned you, in the garden, and the breeze outside, and about how _safe_ and _happy_ everyone is and I -,” her voice breaks, she inhales, holds her breath, exhales slow. “I spent a while not having that. For a long time I was _scared_ and _exhausted_ and _always on guard_ because I had to be. And now… I’m so _happy,”_ she says. “I’m just so _happy_ here. And I thought about that today and - I just _wish_ my mom could have met you.” Aubrey has to bite the words out, force them through gritted teeth, pushing down against the sob welling up in her chest. “I think she would have _loved_ you, Dani.”

She can feel Dani nod against her hand. “I wish I could have met her too,” she says, quiet, trembling. “She raised _you,_ after all, and I don’t know anyone better. She must have been amazing.”

“Dani,” Aubrey says, “I _love_ you. I realized that I love you. I don’t ever want to _stop_ loving you.” It rolls off her tongue like she’s said it a thousand times already, easy as breathing. Aubrey braces herself in the momentary quiet that follows, listens to the frogs outside. She hopes she gets to say it a thousand times more, a million, hopes that this isn’t the last time, that she’ll say it so much it wears a groove into her mouth.

She hears Dani sob, and her eyes snap open just as Dani takes her ring off. The inside of the car reflects orange as she reaches out and pulls Aubrey down to kiss her, soft, sweet, and then presses their foreheads together again.

“I love you too,” Dani gasps out, crying. “Oh god, Aubrey, I love you too. I love you more than _anything.”_

Aubrey cups Dani’s face with her hands, uses her thumbs to swipe the tears off her cheeks, holding each other until they stop crying. The back of Aubrey’s eyelids glow faint red, and their last hiccuping sob fades away.

For a minute they breathe the same air, nose to nose.

“I don’t want to sit back down,” Dani whispers, “But the car is just about the most uncomfortable place to do this, I think one of my ribs is gonna puncture my lung, so can we go home so I can hold you properly?”

Aubrey laughs, and they both pull back, reluctant. They hold hands the whole drive back to the Lodge - their fingers untangle just long enough to get out of the car before finding each other again. They tip-toe through the empty lobby and collapse onto Dani’s bed, as close to each other as they can manage. Aubrey runs a hand through Dani’s hair, a little greasy and sticky from the sunscreen and the lakewater, admires the lurid orange of her eyes and the reddened tip of her nose, watches Dani admire her back.

* * *

Aubrey wakes up early the next morning, but late by her new standards. It’s raining outside, breaking the heat wave. She reaches for the AC in the window and turns it off so they can hear the patter of it against the roof. The sky is dim grey outside the curtains, but the trees and grass are vibrant green. It’s beautiful and quiet. Aubrey traces the shape of the branches with her eyes and finds she knows the bend in every bough, the line of every trunk. It’s good to be home. Dani sighs, rolling over to face her. She’s already smiling before she even peels her eyes open, and Aubrey smiles back.

“Hi,” Dani says. 

“Hi,” Aubrey replies. “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> this work was brought to you by two slow dancers by mitski, if you met her by palehound, and crying in public by chairlift.  
> big thank you to diego, dylan, and aiden (cheerie, teamsweetflips, and mcelesbian on tumblr but u should check out dylans ao3, which is stupidgaytree)
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at elfglock (it'll be elfslur again soon so if you search that and can't find it i've changed back) and you can find Aubrey's Very Cool Dani Mixtape [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4zRYcmp1V5fuFJWDPnb254?si=ndtcbYjRTsK_k3H2nOcfDg)
> 
> comments and kudos are, as always, appreciated. i wuv you.


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